Thursday 9th November 2017.

It was a dark and early start to the day this morning. I was out with Meg and Gracie at 6.15am for an early morning walk around the woodland of Brayton Barff. It was still quite dark as we walked through and amongst the trees, fortunately the day glow collars on the dogs were shining brightly and I had close control of the both, other than me getting clattered in the face by a stray tree branch a couple of times. By 6.45 the light was breaking through and I could actually see where I was walking. 

I had arranged with fellow photographer Graham Breeze to drive down to Donna Nook to see the seal colony there. There have been seals at Donna Nook since the 70’s; this stretch of Lincolnshire Coast is one of four areas along the east coast which has high numbers of Atlantic Grey Seals. The seals start arriving from mid-October and by mid-November the numbers rise significantly from day to day. This year the first seal pup born here was on October 12th and by today 170 pups had been born. Last week there were 199 Bulls and 329 cows on the beach, this week the numbers have risen to 452 bulls, 812 cows and 527 pups, all the pups being born within 24 hours of the cows arriving at the birthing grounds. Last year records show that 1,959 pups were born, so over the next few weeks there will be a significant increase in seal numbers. 

It is approximately a ninety minute drive from the Selby area to reach the seal colony; we arrived and parked in the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust car park at Saltfleet around 10.15am. It was a dull and overcast morning and although rain wasn’t forecast we had a couple of showers. This was my first visit to Donna Nook, it is only a short walk from the car park to the ‘beach’ fortunately the whole area has been fenced off with a low picket fence to protect the seals. The viewing area stretched along the coast line for several hundred yards. When a cow comes up to the fence line to give birth the wardens put a rope chicane in place to divert members of the public away from the fence as the adult seals can become quite aggressive and get easily stressed if disturbed so the chicane gives them some privacy and protection from prying eyes. 

One of the first things that struck me was the size of the seals, the bull seals in particular are massive and can grow up to three metres in length, the cows a little shorter. The majority of them were sleeping, quite prone, some laid in shallow water pools, others on the grassy sandy dunes, occasionally when a bull encroaches another seal be it a bull or cow there is always some friction between the two namely lots of mouthing and showing teeth and lots of grunting. It was quite fascinating watching the behaviour, I watched a bull coming under threat from a smaller male, as the bigger bull headed for the smaller one  you could feel the ground vibrate as several tons of fat and blubber came thundering down on the ground. 

It was interesting chatting to the wardens, they seemed to know each of the seals by name, which pup belonged to which cow, how the numbers compared to last year etc etc. A interesting and fascinating morning, I am already looking forward to visiting again soon to see how the numbers have increased.